Doug McIntyre: The disorganized opposition

On Friday, my employers at the Daily News endorsed Measures HH and MM, calling them in an editorial, "two tax measures that should not be controversial."

I beg to differ.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), an offshoot of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC), sprung these two parcel taxes on the public with as little fanfare as possible.

SMMC and MRCA honcho Joe Edmiston works best in the shadows.

Measure HH would slap a $24-per-year tax for the next 10 years on properties within a cherry-picked election "district": a large area east of the 405, including the Hollywood Hills and the hillside homes west of Griffith Park.

Measure MM hits up homeowners west of the 405 and south of the 101 in Woodland Hills, Encino, Tarzana and Calabasas. They get off easy at only $19 per year for the next 10 years.

The MRCA says they need the money for brush clearance, road maintenance, signage, rangers and open space preservation. Left off the list of expenses is litigation, Joe Edmiston's court of first resort. To oppose Joe is to go broke defending your property rights in court.

Ask Soka University.

After years of litigation they finally surrendered and built a new campus from scratch in Aliso Viejo, miles away from Edmiston's reach.

So what's the controversy? After all MM and HH are just two more tax proposals on a ballot crammed with tax proposals, and HH and MM are not particularly big taxes at that.

The problem is nobody can explain how they got on the ballot.

The L.A. County Registrar- Recorder/County Clerk's office is unable to tell me under whose authority the MRCA placed MM & HH on the ballot.

When asked how a 10-year property tax suddenly qualified for the November ballot - with no information in the voter information guide and no opposition statement - I was told by Elizabeth Knox of the county clerk's office via email "The MRCA called its own election."

How can that be?

If the City Council wants to raise our taxes they have to vote to put it on a ballot. If an advocacy group wants a ballot measure they have to gather signatures. How is it possible the MRCA can simply send a letter to the county clerk and get a tax measure on the ballot that kicks off millions of dollars to the MRCA with no check or balance?

Portions of the targeted MM neighborhoods fall in Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine's district. When asked under whose authority MM appears on the ballot, his staff, after four days of genuine effort, has still been unable to come up with an answer.

The issue currently sits with the city attorney's office.

It's possible buried somewhere in some obscure piece of legislation the MRCA has been empowered to place a property tax hike on the ballot, but it is eyebrow-raising that neither the county clerk nor Zine's staff have been able to find such a law.

When the City Council puts a measure before the public, the public can vote against the measure AND vote against the city council members who proposed it if they so chose.

The same goes for the California Assembly and Senate on statewide issues.

Who do we vote against if we oppose Joe Edmiston?

For more than 30 years Edmiston has run the SMMC and MRCA overseen only by a puppet board that not only authorized Measure HH and MM but a 2002 mail-in-only election covering the identical parcels targeted with MM and HH.

The 2002 MRCA tax hike doesn't expire until 2028 and will bring in $72 million over its lifespan.

In a state that's effectively bankrupt why do we allow two rogue organizations to be run by the same man sitting in Barbra Streisand's former multi-million dollar mansion?

It's time to sell the mansion.

In California we have national parks, state parks, county parks and municipal parks. While we're closing firehouses and furloughing teachers and firefighters isn't it time to send Joe packing and transfer title of SMMC and MRCA property to the various jurisdictions in which they fall?

Cashiering Edmiston and shutting down the MRCA in particular would eliminate an expensive redundancy and score a huge victory for representative government by ending the reign of a man who has trampled private property rights while making a mockery of due process.

My bosses at the Daily News said, "there is no organized opposition to the measures", and that is 100 percent correct.

But it's hard to organize against measures practically no one has ever heard of and when the county clerk can't even explain how they got on the ballot.

Consider this column the disorganized opposition.

Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. You can reach him at Doug@KABC.com.